CLEVELAND (AP) - Two county election workers were sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of 2004 presidential election ballots so they could avoid a longer, detailed review.

Jacqueline Maiden, 60, a Cuyahoga County election coordinator who was the board's third-highest ranking employee, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer, 40, each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan allowed the women to remain free on bail pending appeal, but indicated he thought there was a more widespread conspiracy among election officials.

"I can't help but feel there's more to this story," Corrigan said.

And I can't help but feel the two election officials should have been sentenced to 18 years instead of months (though we understand that to be the max sentence), given the number of folks who have died in Bush's War since the 2004 Election and the fact that there were enough votes in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) alone to give the race to Kerry instead of Bush had the election been administered legitimately.

Just for the record, only 6 votes registered for Kerry instead of Bush in each of Ohio's precincts would have changed the result of that election.

Must run, so we'll refer you to our previous coverage when the two Ohio elections officials were found guilty in January for more details.

NOTE: Hat-Tip to "Ninepatch" over at DailyKos for tipping us off to the news of the sentencing. It's a rather sigh-inducing irony to get the news from dKos given it's proprietor Markos Moulitsas Zúniga had once shamefully banned all diarists, and purged their diaries, for daring to discuss and/or investigate the Ohio 2004 Presidential Election conspiracy. Thank you for continuing to make noise on these matters anyway those of you who have done so at dKos!

UPDATE:AP now has more on the sentencing and concerns by both the Judge and prosecutor that the conspiracy goes higher:

"I can't help but feel there's more to this story," said Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan, who allowed the women to remain free on bond pending appeal. Some of their friends and relatives sobbed as the judge imposed the sentence.

The judge repeatedly asked Jacqueline Maiden, 60, an election coordinator who was the Cuyahoga County board's third-highest ranking employee, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer, 40, if higher-ups in the board had directed the recount rigging.

"It seems unlikely your supervisors wouldn't know," the judge prodded.
...
"This big conspiracy, it's not there," Dreamer said. She said she wasn't protecting anyone at the board and had been truthful in the investigation.

Maiden said she wouldn't lie, even to protect someone. "I've never tried to do anything underhanded," she said.

Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter, appointed as an outside investigator to look into the election board in Cleveland, told that judge that the women had been uncooperative in the investigation and appealed for prison time for both.

"The defendants have never come clean," he said.
...
Baxter criticized the outspoken support for the women from Robert Bennett, the election board chairman and head of the Republican Party in Ohio. Endorsing such criminal behavior is "amazing, it's astounding," according to Baxter, who didn't indicate if the investigation might lead to more charges.

Hey Brad
I had already left 2 comments in the diary linking the crowd back to your past coverage of the Cuyahoga mess. As usual you've been way out in front of the rest.
Agree it should have been longer than 18 mos, but it's great to see some people are finally being held accountable.

Eighteen years would be *Almost* reasonable.
I would add in addition to 18 years...
a complete background check into these convicted (Dig Deep, many years back), removal of ALL SECURITY clearances, banished from serving in ANY GOVERNMENT, local, state, or federal, banished from working for EVM manufactures, banished from lobbying government. All this for LIFE. They also ought to loose their right to vote --- forever.

People don't seem to realise the "butterfly effect" when applied to electronic voting, has led us down an unconstitutional path. It's not just some joke theory. It's deadly real. These electronic voting machines KILL PEOPLE!

What we are left because of their crimes.
No right to vote (Can't count the damn thing)
A lot of death (Lies, Broken Oaths of Office, War)
A lot of debt (See war above)
A lot of corruption (Hey lets steal the election we only get less that two years, hey let's appoint cronies too! Hell, lets take over the whole government, that way nobody can hold us accountable ever again. We can do whatever we want, we are the new GOD.)
It would be redundant to say the destruction of the Constitution..

a.) They also ought to loose their right to vote --- forever.
b.) No right to vote (Can't count the damn thing)

Technically they have lost their right to vote, since it can not be counted correctly. But I wanted to take this a step further and deny them the same (broken currently "right to vote") they took from us. And if it's ever to be fixed proper in the future, they should not be allowed to participate.

Hope that made sense. It's hard to explain. Most of the stuff going on by the Bush administration is "hard to explain" it's purposly that way in my opinion. There's little mind games, word games, bill number games, and national security secrets games all to keep us in the darkness. I ain't sayin there ain't real national security secrets. I am just wondering how we are going to clean up this corrupt government that does not serve the will of the people. That protects itself by hiding under the veil of national security. I never did hear anything about that DHS thing in Ohio where people were denied access to oversee the vote counting because of some National Security Red Alert or some such nonsense in OHIO.

While we are at it lets not forget that Rehnquist, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and O'Connor in the US Supreme Court gave us this disaster in Bush v Gore.

The overall count in Florida was in favor of Gore, but the Bush loving Supreme Court did what the court in the Dred Scott decision did. They forgot what america is about, and became fascist in their thinking.

And as the Dred Scott decision led to the blood of thousands of americans pouring into the dirt, so the Gore v Bush decision has led to the same thing.

The official history of Bush II is not going to be a good one. Bush can pay all the shills he wants (e.g. History of Bush, by Ann Coulter), but the real historians are speaking ... and it can only get worse.

Thanks supreme court, thanks criminals in ohio, and thanks diebold, for forcing crime and corruption on an America that had budget and reputation surpluses at the time you did your dirty work.

Now we have red ink, red states, red blood soaked soil, and a soiled reputation.

I have been on the phone this morning to Feinstein and Schumer’s offices telling them to contact you about voter fraud and use this opportunity to educate the public with the truth regarding election fraud in this country. I mentioned the Arkansas US Attorney’s involvement in “caging voters”.

I was sick last night watching Pat Buchanan on Scarborough spouting the right wing election fraud myths with no one to challenge him on the facts. They always bring up the Loretta Sanchez race here in O C when she ran against that nut case ( can’t remember his name)…..not the most recent race of course.

I also told Schumer to stop referring to Gonzales as a “nice” guy…Beware the banality of evil.

Brad--
Diane at 16 is correct. If the Repubs think voter fraud is an issue, fine let's talk about it. You are strategically armed to provide lots of help (as is Rep Conyers). This is an issue that absolutely should be brought into the USA Scandel's spotlight.

Guys (#16 and #17), let's not forget that the MSM is owned and controlled by the same kind of folks that put Shrubby in office in the first place.. We all know how important stories have been witheld and crap stories about runaway brides and dead fat ignorant strippers (who married rich) are all over 'page 1'..

Getting our Congress persons to "speak up about it" in an attempt to "educate the masses" won't go anywhere.. Nor will any elected official make too much of a stink about it knowing Murdock doesn't want to talk about it. See, the #3 source of revenue for Networks is -political advertising-... that's a LOT of money, and if politicos don't play nice, they don't get on TV. Raising a stink about something that would end the stranglehold the MSM has isn't going to happen on TV.

Larry #8, one could also say that the actual, verified examples of election fraud and disenfranchisement (as opposed to that proven non-existent "epidemic" of voter fraud that they desperately peddle) would get far more outrage out of Republicans if it were caused by gay sex.

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This was the accepted total # of votes increased to Kerry after the Ohio recount.

In a time of the Bush warmongers and final destructive assalt as the official US response to our world environmental crisis these fcks get 18 months.
i suppose this all makes sense in corporation USA right Mr. Kerry. Where is your official statement Senator Bonesmen? Thank you JUDGE! You and the guilty all wear someone else's blood on your hands,in your mouth, in your hair. Burry this corporate criminal mass media and Democrat Party just like you did the story at the time. Useless lyers!

Ohio Free Press and Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb were documenting the faux recount/rigging at the time with basically no help. There efforts should be looked at very closely since Blackwell and Ohio closed loopholes from election protection people even being able to have the few tools they used to fight in the 2004 federal election.

Thank you for all the news you have so diligently reported about the election farce of 2004.
Your conjecture about there being more to this story in that more people were involved in the vote fraud is probably correct. To link it to the Iraq war is too much of a stretch.
At the same time I agree that most likely things would be different with a Kerry administration, I’m not sure the Dems would have us out of Iraq by now. Considering all the obvious mishandlings and lies that have been done associated with this conflict, it is amazing to me how politically inept the Dems have been in trying to get even non-binding resolutions enacted against the war. The Dems are so afraid that looking peaceful is viewed as looking weak. I guess they forgot how strong the civil rights people had to be to take the abuse from the segregationalists. Personally I don’t think that the entire Dem party is interested in leaving Iraq (remember there are Military industrial complex jobs in every district). Peace isn’t a partisan issue because it doesn’t seem that either party is really interested in it.
The Right Fielder

4 states were knowing stolen in the PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2004. NM, NV, OH, and FL (again).

I AM ANGERED BY MANY ASPECTS OF THIS THEFT and New Mexico would have been the easiest to evidence but to concentrate on OHIO because this is the state Kerry conceded the next day and gave Bush the immediate unexamined victory. It was also the ONLY state debated by the 109th Congress who accepted the rigged electors from that state. Nothing shocking about the corporate criminal robots and Bush yes-men who made up the majority in that Congress but where is the OUTRAGE FROM AMERICANS???

How bout the fact that you can corrupt someone to help steal an election of the US Presidency no less and receive a jail sentence penalty of year and 1/2 in prison? Like a previous post said, there are people in US jails serving time for self-medicating themselves with an illegal drug. How fcked up is that BUSH AMERICA?

THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN BRAD AND BRAD BLOGGER PATRIOTS FOR GETTING THE TRUTH OUT IN THIS COUNTRY BLATENTLY RUN BY GREEDY FASCIST IMPERIALISTS!

Anyone notice, that now we have TWO GOP election thieves, Chuck Hagel and now John Sununu, speaking out against Bush? Chuck Hagel from ES&S vote thievery and John Sununu from the New England phone jammer area, who was one of the famous 7-or-so GOP Senate "upset/bottom of the 9th inning victory" winners in the 2002 elections? What's going on here?

Ever look at these 2002 senate stats?

Coleman of Minnesota won by 3%, a swing of 8-11% from the polls in favor of Coleman.

Chambliss had a 9-12% poll shift in his favor, when Cleland was predicted to win.

The grandaddy of them all: GOP Senate candidate Perdue had a 16 (sixteen) point swing in his favor from the polls to "the count", was supposed to lose to Barnes. The polls said Barnes had a 9% lead and he lost by 7%!!!!!!!!!! SIXTEEN POINT SWING!!!!!!!!!!

Democratic congressman Rod Blagojevich has led Attorney General Jim Ryan handily in every poll except one...but lost by 7%. A 7% swing for the Republican.

Comments:
- All the post polling swings in favour of the democratic party were within the margin of error.
- Several of the post polling swings in favour of the republican party were well outside the margin of error.
- In the states where the senate races were critical and close the swing was predominantly towards the Republicans, with the exceptions of Arkansas and Missouri. The level of post-poll swing in these races in favour of the Republican Party in each race were: North Carolina 3, Colorado 4, Georgia 9-12, Minnesota 8-11, Texas 3-11, New Hampshire 1.
- The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.

18 months!? As non-violent offenders they will do time in Camp CupCake, then one takes into account one day off for each day of good behavior while in the pokie. Factor in early release and volia! 6 months at the most, is all the these people will spend in jail.

I say 30 years as "enemy combantants" in GITMO should be the sentence. As a lesson to them and a deterant to others.

In view of this OHIO decision,,what do you think would be appropriate for CATHERINE HARRIS and her little band of secrets,,think she may be a time B---,,,what do you think of CHIEF JUSTICE RENQUIST being juiced out of his mind when he entered into this equation with a bit too much of pain killers,,,wish we could have something to curb the pain of the BUSH ADMIN.,,Diebold should be investigated for their role in voter fraud,,do not you think,,,Seems as if some sculdugery went on in NEW MEXICO,,,OHIO and several other RED,,VERY red faced states. Happy now you doe doos for insisting on this band of incompetents to control our nation,,,,Even happier may be the ROUND THE BEND EVANGELICALS who really thought they were getting into bed with JESUS (politically speaking) All you ???bush???supporters are you a bit outraged about the two border agents being in prison for nothing except doing their jobs,,,makes you a bit angry or a bigger bit em-bare-assed---wise up or prepare for the RAPTURE ,,,,Is there a charge for this service or is it available by subscription??In the future all you lemmings who follow a party line,, it may be a chow line in prison.............................................................................BLUE FACED AND VERY HAPPY IN A VERY BLUE STATE OF MICHIGAN,,I remain in your service...............................Charles Belenchia

Oh, well that's good enough for me. NOT! We don't know if it was part of a larger conspiracy or not. As the prosecutor has nothing to do with the running of elections, I don't care about their opinion on whether the election outcome was affected or not. When there are this many red flags, you have to go back and hand count all of the ballots, or you run the risk of NEVER knowing what the true outcome was. Either VERIFY the results, or NULLIFY them. I think we all know what will happen if we count all those votes... Trust is something that is earned, not something just to be handed out like candy.

You fail to point out that at least one of the women in question was a democrat and that their actions resulted in 17 additional votoes for Kerry and only 6 additional votes for Bush. The real conspiracy in the 2004 election is the nationwide voter fraud and intimidation conducted by ACORN funded by the AFL/CIO. Where is your outrage over the numerous ACORN indictments and convictions?